General Discussions

Started to see some regression issue with stability although nothing too serious. Seems to be a double process glitch where the OS accidentally launches two processes simotameously and eat up the CPU cycles. It's uncommon but has happened to me twice thus far.

Also noticed that the Charms menu is still accessible through the keyboard shortcut key. Unsure of that was intentional since they were hinting at removing it.

Stability issues are the last thing you want to see in a new os but I guess it's not a biggie and Microsoft's probably going to fix it asap.What about backwords compatibility regards to games and programs any impressions on that matter?

Ive never really need to upgrade my OS everytime a new windows came out. I was happy with windows XP for 7 years then upgraded to Windows 7 finally and i dont see a need to upgrade for another 5 years unless the OS market comes out with something amazing.

For me the same thing as on Vista has happened. They re-release a system which has only changed very slightly and call it the next big thing and people start to feel the same.

If you would compare Vista with Windows 7 you won't find any real difference except Windows 7 runs a bit smoother at start(!) but they had more than a year to polish it. Windows 10 is basically a Windows 8. They added the start menu and virtual desktops and that's it in general.

For me a system must be productive and not social based with a Bing search integrated. But I'm pretty sure they will use DirectX 12 to force a user base to upgrade. And once it's done people will start to accept it. However they had targeted the companies and I really wonder how they brand new idea of instant updates will look like for them. It's definitely not something a company wants to hear if they considering an upgrade. They prefer stable systems that works without compatibility issues.

@Dabhand: It's more like a marketing trick. "Hey look guys, it's Windows 10. It's so awesome and improved that it has nothing to do with Windows 8". They tried a fresh start without getting into trouble to be much compared with Windows 8. It should look like 'the brand new big thing'.

[Edited by 0x90, 10/1/2014 12:59:06 AM]

Although I only recently installed Win 8 on my home system last week (new build), I have been using the OS since this past March on my computer at work. I built a new rig there, and our MSDN account no longer had Win 7 as an option (plus my boss had been pushing me to “upgrade” for some time at this point).

Personally, I think that Vista=7=8 (excluding the varied start menu and force feeding of Bing). Operationally, visually, and performance wise I see only subtle differences from 7 to 8. One speculation I have encountered is that MS is moving to locking down certain parts of the operating system. My co-workers and I think they are taking a play from Mac's playbook in an effort to make the OS more secure (or at least perceived as such). I would understand that move if it were true. Those of you that have ever served as a Tier 1 tech support can attest to the fact that a PC's greatest enemy is not a virus or power surges. Rather, it is the carbon based life form sitting between the chair and keyboard. That’s the part of the equation that is downloading garbage from risky sites to save a buck, installing PC “performance enhancers” that do nothing (or worse… damage), and neglecting to use common sense in troubleshooting problems.

My elder brother once handled a support call where the individual could not get the store server online… when he finally got to the point of asking the inevitable “is it plugged in” he received this answer… “I can’t see, there are no lights. There was a big storm and the power has been knocked out for a while”… turns out the user was certain that all computers were powered by the internet (or maybe gnomes and fairies).

In re the compulsory updates, I cannot see any corporation large or small biting at that. I agree with you 100%. They need something stable, hence the reason many if not most organizations are just now moving to Win 7. Since very few of our customers are power users they most often buy what is currently installed by Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc. When that is all they are focused on, the stability of the product is never even considered, whereas the new shininess of it is their primary concern. People rarely use computers for the purposes of production any more... rather they use them primarily for consumption. I suppose that is why more people are moving to tablets now.

In re DirectX 12, from what I hear you are right on the money with forcing the consumer base to move into the new OS. From my understanding MS is considering a remarkably low upgrade cost of $30 to user of Win 7. You can take this part with a grain of salt, because I honestly cannot even recall where I encountered that claim... I have read numerous articles with respect to the operating system in just the last three or four days. That being said, it is akin to Apple’s decision to deploy OS 10 (I think it was 10… not a Mac user myself) for free because many changes were going to cause far too much disruption when it came to compatibilities with a number of programs and services. In MS fashion however, they still want some money… so forget free… $30 please!

Once it is released, a handful of staff in my office will likely be required to utilize the OS in order to essentially beta test our own application's use therein. I will likely be one of those installing the new version as my primary responsibility is to provide product training for all of our customers along with generating KB articles for our manual. So for me, the frustration may come sooner than for most. HOORAY!

Ultimately, my guess is that the official release of 10 will coincide with each and everyone of us finally adapting to some of the annoyances with the Win 8 OS (such as social trending garbage you also referenced above). My feeling is also (as most of you have noted or eluded to) that there will be minimal innovation coming, just the same package wrapped in new paper. So for now, until I can actually dive into it the system, I am skeptical about any jaw dropping improvements and have extremely low expectations.

That is the smartest thing I have ever heard anyone say about anything.-P. Griffin

Firefox seems to be taking up more memory than usual. I have not determined if it's the fault of the OS, Mozilla, or just a freak accident that's been happening randomly.

I've also noticed that everything is a "Modern UI" notification now. On Windows 8 / 8.1 legacy programs that were not updated to use the new stuff in 8 displayed balloon notifications back in ye old Windows XP days. Looks like everything is now a Modern UI notification (picture below if you don't know what this looks like).

I haven't found the alleged "Notification Button" that's supposed to be in this build. I'll keep looking for that (supposed to be a standard notification center like in KDE, Mac OS X, Android, etc).

These notification messages have been added on Windows 8. Most of the system is still Windows 8 so I'm wondering if people will call it 'the next big thing' like Microsoft does although its just a small improvement.

However some announced things haven't been added yet or cannot be tested like the instant updates and the mysterious security mechanism they claim to be added to protect business customers.

I dont have any positive or negative opinion on the notification system which was introduced in Win 8 but the thing is I really disliked the whole interface in general which imo is very uncomfortable and very unpleasant looking with all those basic colors.It sucks to see that Microsoft continued the same pattern with Win 10 and the start menu doesnt improve it either.

About FF I think it's probably a freak accident between the two and only because I had past exp with FF conflicting with Nvidia driver and causing tdr's when idle, now that was a real freak show..